Potential Virus? Advice Sorely Needed

I have no idea what is going on. I just fell victim to one of these email spams so many people get but I never did because I thought I was more careful. I have a yahoo mail and it just spammed a bunch of people with some link and the letters vdgw next to it. ismailpinar . com or something like that was the link.

So here is what I want to know. Does this mean my computer is compromised? Does it mean my email is compromised? Or does it simply mean someone spammed an email pretending to be from me? Here is the only other piece of evidence I can add. I got a few replies (it sent it to a ton of my contacts) saying delivery failed because they are probably not current addresses. When I check my sent mail, this isn't there. It's like someone sent this out pretending to be me. But how did it get my contacts?????? Am I in any sort of danger here? Are my online bank accounts at risk? What do I do know? I have Norton 2013 running and it shows me as good to go. No idea where to go next.


Really sorry if this is the wrong sub forum but I'm not sure where to go and desperate.

 

welcome to our world.

ive had this twice in the last month.
this is the simple explanation how it works.
there are scumbags out there that write these codes and viruses just for fun and to make as much mess over the web as they can.
its like a pyramid affect where it only takes one person to click on the link and within a few hours its affected over 10 million emails.
for example. all of these people have 100 contacts in their address book.
1 person clicks on the link to start it off and it sends it to all 100 of his contacts. all of them also have 100 contacts each
1=
100=
100x100 = 10,000
100x10000= 1000000 etc etc

what i done was first deleted the person it said it came from and then copied down all my email addresses on a spreadsheet and then deleted them all from yahoo and hotmail. then when i want to send idividuals emails i just add them to the address book one by one.

in simple terms i have no idea if this can put a virus on your computer or not.
i think the safest thing if you clicked on the link yourself is to delete all your contacts. go into safe mode and run a virus scan. also download something like malwarebites and run a scan with that as well.

found this

 

Thanks for the reply. To be clear, I never clicked on any link. I was the one sending it. I traced it to a Moroccan Log in for whatever that is worth (nothing). I've changed my password and managed my security Q's and stuff so it seems okay on that end. Is there more I should be worried about?

 

changing password is always a good idea but no matter what security you have this mass mailer has got through as its in your safe list as it thinks it is from one of your friends so if it is a virus and a well written code you have inadvertantly given it permission to be on your computer so it could of spread.

i never clicked the link as well. i only found out i had it when a friend in another country contacted me by text saying why did i send her a link saying she was fat and needed this diet. yes she clicked the link.
i told her what to do and havnt heard back since. i done the same as above and havnt seen anoter mass mailer since.

the only way you can be 100% sure its gone is to do a operating system install which is a pain in the butt as you will lose everything.

 

A good way to tell if you have a virus on your system is to look at who the recipients of the spam e-mails are. If they are in your e-mail address book, then you've got a virus and should take appropriate steps to get rid of it (anti-virus scan, etc.). If, however, the recipients are random people you've never heard of, then your e-mail address was spoofed and there's essentially nothing you can do about it, since it did not originate with you.

 

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense. Can someone else way in on this? I ran a Norton scan and a Malwarebytes scan and everything was running smoothly. The spam email was sent to my contact list but why would that indicate a virus? The hacker (whether automated or human) was IN MY EMAIL. Yahoo email is apparently really easy to hack. Why is it surprising that the spam mail was sent to my Yahoo mail contacts? That doesn't seem like an indication of a virus to me but I'm not sure. Any others who may be able to shed some light here?

 

OMG there is just too much to cover here. There literally are thousands of different ways and this is why it is so prolific. As always best bet is to only click links you know etc. but even then you are still at risk......

 

In this day and age of click as you go is why so many gets infected and cry fowl...they haven't learned that not all click are created equal and some are far worse then you can ever expected. If you can dream it they will create the click to get you. So many computer savy user but not many are not educated in the world of not everything click is created to benefit you. I myself have edited my hosts file to block potential loaded sites to allow only what is permitted to pass and since doing that I have a better net experience and still able to click legit links to get my computing experiences.